#Kaiser Wilhelm i

[friedrich-2]

It’s like all in the title. Please comment if you think something should be different with arguments as to why lol

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

[kaiserrreich]

[helshollowhalls]

My favorite romance trope is the politician-aristocrat duo in the 19th century, both 50+ years old, working together very closely and leaving the general public of today completely bamboozled as to how certain political decisions were made back then, because both of them were extremely stubborn and prideful and agreeing on compromises or an opinion which was not mutually agreed on in the first place does warrant that the two gentlemen in question probably had some sort of relationship other than just their workplace relationship.

[spghtrbry]

wilhelm/bismarck lovehate yaoi compilation

[victoriademedici]

royal men + text post memes (insp.)

[spiritheaded]

I never thought I'd hear a robotic Kaiser Wilhelm on customs duty yelling SHNICKERZZZZ?? in a sci fi podcast but. here we are fjdhdhdhdjh

[little-candy-store-of-horrors]

I bet on losing dogs

References under the cut

[earnestskeepsake]

pov my mom wrapping me up when I was like 5 to go to playing with my friends in the snow during winter (photo credit to @thesmithslover2)

[foreverinthepagesofhistory]

The 8 children of Emperor Fredrick III of Germany and Victoria Princess Royal (edit)

Wilhelm, Charlotte, Henry, Sigismund, Viktoria, Waldemar, Sophia, Margaret

(made by me using iMovie)

[friedrich-2]

Just to say, I don’t think FWII nor Willy are hot or pretty, it’s just what I think they’d answer lmao

[krasivaa]

Young Prince Wilhelm, future Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia (AKA Wilhelm II).

[kaiserrreich]

October 22 1858: The Birth of Kaiserin Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein

Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein was the eldest daughter of Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein and Princess Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Lagenburg. Tragedy struck only a week after her birth when her elder brother died from illness. In 1860, her younger sister, Caroline Mathilda, was born. Who was regarded as prettier and a brighter personality than the chubby, serious, submissive Augusta Victoria. Soon Augusta’s mother would give birth to another boy, Gerhard, who died in infancy. Their next male heir and fifth child, Ernst Gunther, was a perfectly healthy baby boy. Augusta would have two other sisters, Louise Sophie in April 1866 and Feodora Adelaide in July 1874.

In her family, she was known affectionately as “Dona.” Augusta’s obedient nature was noted on early in her youth, even by her future mother-in-law Crown Princess Frederick. ‘It is strange how good some children are – and how little trouble they give,’ she wrote to her mother, Queen Victoria, when Augusta Victoria was nine years old.  ‘Ada’s children are patterns of obedience, gentleness – the best of dispositions’. (1)

The thought of a match between Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein and Prince Wilhelm of Prussia was contemplated ever since they were children, as noted by the prince (future Kaiser, ex-Kaiser) later in the future. But was never taken seriously until after the prince was rejected by Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine. Perhaps, Wilhelm was seeking for a rebound in Dona and it was a success. As the couple married on the 27th of February 1881. The marriage has been regarded to be happy but not without struggle. As Wilhelm quickly grew bored at his new wife’s longing for a simple domestic lifestyle, having multiple affairs throughout the years. And in the beginning only saw Dona as a broodmare. It was only after an ear infection gone bad, where Augusta stayed by Wilhelm’s side throughout the duration of it did he start to see her in an adjusted light, but continued to be unfaithful to her.

She bore him seven children:

Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, Crown Prince of Prussia (1882-1951)

Prince Eitel Friedrich (1883-1942)

Prince Adalbert (1884-1948)

Prince August Wilhelm (1887-1949)

Prince Oskar (1888-1958)

Prince Joachim (1890-1920)

Princess Viktoria Louise of Prussia (1892-1980)

Her days as Empress, she was regarded by the court as a prudish, a stickler for rules who punished anyone for the simplest gesture she deemed to be “immoral.” She was deemed by many as unremarkable and plain with a gaudy and tacky sense of fashion. With Nicholas II remarking to his mother, the Dowager Empress. That she ‘did her best to be pleasant but looked awful in sumptuous gowns completely lacking in taste; in particular the hats she wore in the evening were frightful.’

Though as overbearing and a nuisance as she was in public life and a part of her private life, by some family members, such as Empress Frederick (with whom she had a very heated feud with and who Augusta enjoyed snubbing frequently) who wrote to her daughter, Sophie, she was characterized as: ‘very grand and stiff and cold and condescending at first, but became much nicer afterwards.  Perhaps it was also partly shyness.’ and by her younger sister, Louise Sophie that when she was ‘not bowing to the will of her autocratic husband she was easy and indulgent’. “Her cousin Alice of Albany, who was sometimes mildly critical of her older relations, found her ‘most affable and kind’.”(1)

She was her husband’s biggest supporter throughout everything (for better and for worse) and was crushed when she was stripped of her titles as German Empress and Queen of Prussia after the war. Her health, which was already declining ever since the 1890s (causing her to miscarry twice) went down a rapid decline in the 1920s. And it had worsened when she had heard of the news of the death of her youngest son, Prince Joachim. She passed away on the 11th April 1921, in spite of her personal flaws, she was a beloved Empress by the German people and her popularity outshined her husband’s. Thousands lined up to see her off, where she would be buried at the Temple of Antiquities in the gardens near the New Palais in Postdam. Her husband, the ex Kaiser Wilhelm II was forbidden to cross into Germany to see his wife off for the final time.

Her room in Huis Doorn was soon turned into a shrine dedicated to the late Empress. With Wilhelm ordering for the room to regularly be cleaned with flowers and a cross draped over the bed. “Once a week, for the rest of his twenty years, he would retire there on his own, to go and mourn her memory.“ (1)

Wilhelm adhered to his late wife’s wishes for him to marry someone else when she was gone. When only a year later he would marry Princess Hermine of Reuss. He passed away in June of 1941, at age 82, 20 years after her passing.

Source : The Last German Empress

[nevesmose]

The dawning realisation of why there's so little WW1-related content in the tag "The Great War"

[spghtrbry]

thank you so so much @fitzrove for sending me this beautiful illustration

[nicklloydnow]

“Monarchies are the semi-organic outgrowth of hierarchically structured natural - stateless - social orders. Kings are the heads of extended families, of clans, tribes, and nations. They command a great deal of natural, voluntarily acknowledged authority, inherited and accumulated over many generations. It is within the framework of such orders (and of aristocratic republics) that liberalism first developed and flourished. In contrast, democracies are egalitarian and redistributionist in outlook; hence, the above-mentioned growth of state power in the 20th century. Characteristically, the transition from the monarchical age to the democratic one, beginning in the second half of the 19th century, has seen a continuous decline in the strength of liberal parties and a corresponding strengthening of socialists of all stripes.” - Hans-Hermann Hoppe, ‘Reflections on State and War’ (2006)